Bodybuilding Diet Plan

Below I present a good example of a diet plan for a true natural bodybuilder who needs about 3700 calories per day. The diet plan consists of 5 solid meals and 3 protein shakes in between the meals. This results in a total of 8 small meals per day, each two and a half hours apart.

The total daily intake of protein should be at least 1 gram of animal protein for each pound of body weight. The rest of your calories should mostly come from carbohydrates. A good target formula is to get about 30% of your calories from protein, 50-55% from carbohydrates, and about 15-20% from fat.

Of course there are countless ways to compose the meals in order to get the target calorie and nutrient content. Great sources of protein are non-fat milk products, egg whites, poultry, meat and fish. Good sources of carbohydrates are vegetables, fruit, milk, pasta, rice, bread, potatoes and cereals. Good sources of fat are egg yolks, fat fish, and some vegetable sources such as olives, nuts and flaxseed oil.

Variation is a key aspect of every healthy diet; therefore it is advised to change slightly the composition of your meals every day by choosing different meat, fish, poultry, fruit, vegetables and cereals. One example is presented below.

Kcal

Protein (g)

Carbs (g)

Fat (g)

07:30 Breakfast

490

23.0

68.8

13.6

2 eggs

144

12.6

0.8

10.0

100 g wholemeal bread

226

8.0

41.0

3.3

300 mL orange juice

120

2.4

27.0

0.3

10:00: Protein shake

382

42.4

48.4

2.1

1 banana (100 g)

99

1.1

23.0

0.3

500 mL skimmed milk

171

16.5

24.0

1.0

30 g milk protein powder

112

24.8

1.4

0.8

12:30: Lunch

792

52.4

107.6

17.0

150 g tuna

163

39.0

0.0

0.8

150 g pineapple

109

0.6

26.3

0.2

100 g pasta

358

12.0

75.0

1.1

100 g olives

164

0.8

6.3

15.0

15:00: Protein shake

399

36.6

58.4

2.2

250 mL apple juice

105

0.3

25.5

0.3

250 mL skimmed milk

86

8.3

12.0

0.5

30 g milk protein powder

112

24.8

1.4

0.8

30 g whole grain wheat flour

97

3.3

19.5

0.6

17:30: Dinner

546

43.1

84.6

3.9

150 g turkey

147

31.5

0.0

2.3

100 g rice

358

8.8

78.0

1.2

100 g broccoli

41

2.8

6.6

0.4

20:00: Post-workout shake

392

42.3

48.3

3.3

250 mL orange juice

100

2.0

22.5

0.3

500 mL skimmed milk

171

16.5

24.0

1.0

30 g whey protein powder

121

23.8

1.8

2.1

21:00: Snack

394

9.7

77.8

4.9

100 g muesli

394

9.7

77.8

4.9

22:30: Bed time meal

329

49.0

30.0

1.4

400 g quark or cottage cheese

251

48.0

12.0

1.2

100 g cherries

78

1.0

18.0

0.2

Day total

3724

298

524

48

% of total calories

32%

56%

12%

Note that in the above example only 12% of the calories come from fat. However, the real amount might be a bit higher since I did not include any butter, oil and/or sauces used to prepare the meals.

If you think you still need more fat, you can easily adjust it by changing some products (e.g. 1% fat milk instead of skimmed milk, fine oat powder instead of whole grain wheat flour (Brinta Classic), salmon instead of tuna, steak instead of turkey) or by adding some nuts, olives, fish oil capsules or flaxseed oil.